🚀 go-pugleaf

reaching the head of the stairs, and turning, we entered a large
    front room. There were bedrooms at the back of the house, to be
    let to patrons of the establishment. At the opposite end of the
    front room from the windows was the ever-present idolatrous
    shrine. On either side of the room were elegantly-carved ebony
    chairs, with marble or agate panels. Rich Chinese pictures
    decorated the walls. Toward the back of the room hung the sign,
    '283 Licensed Eating House.' There was a large table in the
    centre of the room. Toward the front, on either side, in alcoves,
    partitioned off in part from the remainder of the room, were
    opium couches, with pipes and lamps ready for use. We give this
    description in full, as it applies, almost without variation, to
    all the others which we visited in the immediate neighborhood.
    Food was furnished on order, intoxicating drinks, and opium. At
    the second place, on the opposite corner of the same block, the
    men told us that the place was used for the same purposes. We
    asked where the women were, and they answered that it was too late
    to see them, but if we would come earlier we would find them. When
    asked where the women came from, they pointed down to the street
    below, to the open brothels, and said there were a great number of
    degraded women who lived close by; said the brothel-keepers sent
    them. They said that white men as well as Chinese came to their
    place. After this we walked the length of the several streets and
    side-streets, in the near vicinity, and proved the truth of what
    the men had told us as to the swarming numbers o